Chapter 3
But Milcho slept not all that night for thought, And, forth ere sunrise issuing, paced a moor Stone-roughened like the graveyard of dead hosts, Till noontide. Sudden then he stopt, and thus Discoursed within: “A plot from first to last, The fraudulent bondage, flight, and late return; For now I mind me of a foolish dream Chance-sent, yet drawn by him awry. One night Methought that boy from far hills drenched in rain Dashed through my halls, all fire. From hands and head, From hair and mouth, forth rushed a flaming fire White, like white light, and still that mighty flame Into itself took all. With hands outstretched I spurned it. On my cradled daughters twain It turned, and they were ashes. Then in burst The south wind through the portals of the house, Tempest rose-sweet, and blew those ashes forth Wide as the realm. At dawn I sought the knave; He glossed my vision thus: ‘That fire is Faith— Faith in the God Triune, the God made Man, Sole light wherein I walk, and walking burn; And they that walk with me shall burn like me By Faith. But thou that radiance wilt repel, Housed through ill-will, in Error’s endless night. Not less thy little daughters shall believe With glory and great joy; and, when they die, Report of them, like ashes blown abroad, Shall light far lands, and health to men of Faith Stream from their dust.’ I drave the impostor forth: Perjured ere long he fled, and now returns To reap a harvest from his master’s dream”— Thus mused he, while black shadow swept the moor. So day by day darker was Milcho’s heart, Till, with the endless brooding on one thought, Began a little flaw within that brain Whose strength was still his boast. Was no friend nigh? Alas! what friend had he? All men he scorned; Knew truly none. In each, the best and sweetest Near him had ever pined, like stunted growth Dwarfed by some glacier nigh. The fifth day dawned: And inly thus he muttered, darkly pale: “Five days; in three the messengers returned: In three—in two—the Accursèd will be here, Or blacken yonder Sleemish with his crew Descending. Then those idiots, kerne and slave— The mighty flame into itself takes all— Full swarm will fly to meet him! Fool! fool! fool! The man hath snared me with those gifts he sent; Else had I barred the mountains: now ’twere late, My people in revolt. Whole weeks his horde Will throng my courts, demanding board and bed, With hosts by Dichu sent to flout my pang, And sorer make my charge. My granaries sacked, My larder lean as ship six months ice-bound, The man I hate will rise, and open shake The invincible banner of his mad new Faith, Till all that hear him shout, like winds or waves, Belief; and I be left sole recusant; Or else perhaps that Fury who prevails At times o’er knee-joints of reluctant men, By magic imped, may crumble into dust By force my disbelief.”
He raised his head, And lo, before him lay the sea far ebbed Sad with a sunset all but gone: the reeds Sighed in the wind, and sighed a sweeter voice Oft heard in childhood—now the last time heard: “Believe!” it whispered. Vain the voice! That hour, Stirred from the abyss, the sins of all his life Around him rose like night—not one, but all— That earliest sin which, like a dagger, pierced His mother’s heart; that worst, when summer drouth Parched the brown vales, and infants thirsting died, While from full pail he gorged his swine with milk And flung the rest away. Sin-walled he stood: God’s Angels could not pierce that cincture dread, Nor he look through it. Yet he dreamed he saw: His life he saw; its labours, and its gains Hard won, long-waited, wonder of his foes; The manifold conquests of a Will oft tried; Victory, Defeat, Retrieval; last, that scene Around him spread: the wan sea and grey rocks; And he was ’ware that on that self-same ledge He, Milcho, thirty years gone by, had stood, While pirates pushed to sea, leaving forlorn On that wild shore a scared and weeping boy, (His price two yearling kids and half a sheep) Thenceforth his slave.
Not sole he mused that hour. The Demon of his House beside him stood Upon that iron coast, and whispered thus: “Masterful man art thou for wit and strength; Yet girl-like standst thou brooding! Weave a snare! He comes for gold, this prophet. All thou hast Heap in thy house; then fire it! In far lands Build thee new fortunes. Frustrate thus shall he Stare but on stones, his destined vassal scaped.”
So fell the whisper; and as one who hears And does, the stiff-necked man obsequious bent His strong will to a stronger, and returned, And gave command to heap within his house His stored up wealth—yea, all things that were his— Borne from his ships and granaries. It was done. Then filled he his huge hall with resinous beams Seasoned for far sea-voyage, and the ribs Of ocean-sundering vessels deep in sea; Which ended, to his topmost tower he clomb, And therein sat two days, with face to south, Clutching a brand; and oft through clenched teeth hissed, Hissed long, “Because I will to disbelieve.” But ere the second sunset two brief hours, Where comfortless leaned forth that western ridge Long patched with whiteness by half melted snows, There crept a gradual shadow. Soon the man Discerned its import. There they hung—he saw them— That company detested; hung as when Storm-boding cloud on mountain hangs half way Scarce moving, and in fear the shepherd cries, “Would that the worse were come!” So dread to him Those Heralds of fair Peace! He gazed upon them With blood-shot eyes; a moment passed: he stood Sole in his never festal hall, and flung His lighted brand into that pile far forth, And smiled that smile men feared to see, and turned, And issuing faced the circle of his serfs That wondering gathered round in thickening mass, Eyeing that unloved House.
His place he chose Beside that blighted ash, fronting those towers Palled with red smoke, and muttered low, “So be it! Worse to be vassal to the man I hate,” With hueless lips. His whole white face that hour Was scorched; and blistered was the dead tree’s bark; Yet there he stood; and in that fiery light His life, no more triumphant, passed once more In underthought before him, while on spread The swift, contagious madness of that fire, And muttered thus, not knowing it, the man, “The mighty flame into itself takes all,” Mechanic iteration. Not alone Stood he that hour. The Demon of his House By him once more and closer than of old, Stood, whispering thus, “Thy game is now played out; Henceforth a byword art thou—rich in youth— Self-beggared in old age.” And as the wind Of that shrill whisper cut his listening soul, The blazing roof fell in on all his wealth, Hard-won, long-waited, wonder of his foes; And, loud as laughter from ten thousand fiends, Up rushed the fire. With arms outstretched he stood; Stood firm; then forward with a wild beast’s cry He dashed himself into that terrible flame, And vanished as a leaf.
Upon a spur Of Sleemish, eastward on its northern slope, Stood Patrick and his brethren, travel-worn, When distant o’er the brown and billowy moor Rose the white smoke, that changed ere long to flame, From site unknown; for by the seaward crest That keep lay hidden. Hands to forehead raised, Wondering they watched it. One to other spake: “The huge Dalriad forest is afire Ere melted are the winter’s snows!” Another, “In vengeance o’er the ocean Creithe or Pict, Favoured by magic, or by mist, have crossed, And fired old Milcho’s ships.” But Patrick leaned Upon his crosier, pale as the ashes wan Left by a burned out city. Long he stood Silent, till, sudden, fiercelier soared the flame Reddening the edges of a cloud low hung; And, after pause, vibration slow and stern Troubling the burthened bosom of the air, Upon a long surge of the northern wind Came up—a murmur as of wintry seas Far borne at night. All heard that sound; all felt it; One only know its import. Patrick turned; “The deed is done: the man I would have saved Is dead, because he willed to disbelieve.”
Yet Patrick grieved for Milcho, nor that hour Passed further north. Three days on Sleemish hill He dwelt in prayer. To Tara’s royal halls Then turned he, and subdued the royal house And host to Christ, save Erin’s king, Laeghaire. But Milcho’s daughters twain to Christ were born In baptism, and each Emeria named: Like rose-trees in the garden of the Lord Grew they and flourished. Dying young, one grave Received them at Cluanbrain. Healing thence To many from their relics passed; to more The spirit’s happier healing, Love and Faith.
SAINT PATRICK AT TARA.
THE King is wroth with a greater wrath Than the wrath of Nial or the wrath of Conn! From his heart to his brow the blood makes path, And hangs there, a red cloud, beneath his crown.
Is there any who knows not, from south to north, That Laeghaire to-morrow his birthday keeps? No fire may be lit upon hill or hearth Till the King’s strong fire in its kingly mirth Up rushes from Tara’s palace steeps!
Yet Patrick has lighted his Paschal fire At Slane—it is holy Saturday— And blessed his font ’mid the chaunting choir! From hill to hill the flame makes way; While the king looks on it his eyes with ire Flash red, like Mars, under tresses grey.
The chiefs and the captains with drawn swords rose: To avenge their Lord and the Realm they swore; The Druids rose and their garments tore; “The strangers to us and our Gods are foes!” Then the king to Patrick a herald sent, Who spake, “Come up at noon and show Who lit thy fire and with what intent: These things the great king Laeghaire would know.”
But Laeghaire had hid twelve men by the way, Who swore by the sun the Saint to slay.
When the waters of Boyne began to bask And fields to flash in the rising sun The Apostle Evangelist kept his Pasch, And Erin her grace baptismal won: Her birthday it was: his font the rock, He blessed the land, and he blessed his flock.
Then forth to Tara he fared full lowly: The Staff of Jesus was in his hand: Twelve priests paced after him chaunting slowly, Printing their steps on the dewy land. It was the Resurrection morn; The lark sang loud o’er the springing corn; The dove was heard, and the hunter’s horn.
The murderers twelve stood by on the way; Yet they saw nought save the lambs at play.
A trouble lurked in the monarch’s eye When the guest he counted for dead drew nigh: He sat in state at his palace gate; His chiefs and nobles were ranged around; The Druids like ravens smelt some far fate; Their eyes were gloomily bent on the ground. Then spake Laeghaire: “He comes—beware! Let none salute him, or rise from his chair!”
Like some still vision men see by night, Mitred, with eyes of serene command, Saint Patrick moved onward in ghostly white: The Staff of Jesus was in his hand; Twelve priests paced after him unafraid, And the boy, Benignus, more like a maid; Like a maid just wedded he walked and smiled, To Christ new plighted, that priestly child.
They entered the circle; their anthem ceased; The Druids their eyes bent earthward still: On Patrick’s brow the glory increased As a sunrise brightening some sea-beat hill. The warriors sat silent: strange awe they felt: The chief bard, Dubtach, rose and knelt:
Then Patrick discoursed of the things to be When time gives way to eternity, Of kingdoms that fall, which are dreams not things, And the Kingdom built by the King of kings. Of Him he spake who reigns from the Cross; Of the death which is life, and the life which is loss; How all things were made by the Infant Lord, And the small hand the Magian kings adored. His voice sounded on like a throbbing flood That swells all night from some far-off wood, And when it ended—that wondrous strain— Invisible myriads breathed “Amen!”
While he spake, men say that the refluent tide On the shore by Colpa ceased to sink: They say that the white stag by Mulla’s side O’er the green marge bending forbore to drink: That the Brandon eagle forgat to soar; That no leaf stirred in the wood by Lee: Such stupor hung the island o’er, For none might guess what the end would be.
Then whispered the king to a chief close by, “It were better for me to believe than die!”
Yet the king believed not; but ordinance gave That whoso would might believe that word: So the meek believed, and the wise, and brave, And Mary’s Son as their God adored. And the Druids, because they could answer nought, Bowed down to the Faith the stranger brought. That day on Erin God poured His Spirit: Yet none like the chief of the bards had merit, Dubtach! He rose and believed the first, Ere the great light yet on the rest had burst.
SAINT PATRICK AND THE TWO PRINCESSES. FEDELM “THE RED ROSE,” AND ETHNA “THE FAIR.”
LIKE two sister fawns that leap, Borne, as though on viewless wings, Down bosky glade and ferny steep To quench their thirst at silver springs, From Cruachan palace through gorse and heather, Raced the Royal Maids together. Since childhood thus the twain had rushed Each morn to Clebach’s fountain-cell Ere earliest dawn the East had flushed To bathe them in its well: Each morn with joy their young hearts tingled; Each morn as, conquering cloud or mist, The first beam with the wavelet mingled, Mouth to mouth they kissed!
They stand by the fount with their unlooped hair— A hand each raises—what see they there? A white Form seated on Clebach stone; A kinglike presence: the monks stood nigh: Fronting the dawn he sat alone; On the star of morning he fixed his eye: That crozier he grasped shone bright; but brighter The sunrise flashed from Saint Patrick’s mitre! They gazed without fear. To a kingdom dear From the day of their birth those Maids had been; Of wrong they had heard; but it came not near; They hoped they were dear to the Power unseen. They knelt when that Vision of Peace they saw; Knelt, not in fear, but in loving awe: The “Red Rose” bloomed like that East afar; The “Fair One” shone like that morning star.
Then Patrick rose: no word he said, But thrice he made the sacred Sign: At the first, men say that the demons fled; At the third flocked round them the Powers divine Unseen. Like children devout and good, Hands crossed on their bosoms, the maidens stood.
“Blessed and holy! This land is Eire: Whence come ye to her, and the king our sire?”
“We come from a Kingdom far off yet near Which the wise love well, and the wicked fear: We come with blessing and come with ban, We come from the Kingdom of God with man.”
“Whose is that Kingdom? And say, therein Are the chiefs all brave, and the maids all fair? Is it clean from reptiles, and that thing, sin? Is it like this kingdom of King Laeghaire?”
“The chiefs of that kingdom wage war on wrong, And the clash of their swords is sweet as song; Fair are the maids, and so pure from taint The flash of their eyes turns sinner to saint; There reptile is none, nor the ravening beast; There light has no shadow, no end the feast.”
“But say, at that feast hath the poor man place? Is reverence there for the old head hoar? For the cripple that never might join the race? For the maimed that fought, and can fight no more?”
“Reverence is there for the poor and meek; And the great King kisses the worn, pale cheek; And the King’s Son waits on the pilgrim guest; And the Queen takes the little blind child to her breast: There with a crown is the just man crowned; But the false and the vengeful are branded and bound In knots of serpents, and flung without pity From the bastions and walls of the saintly City.”
Then the eyes of the Maidens grew dark, as though That judgment of God had before them passed: And the two sweet faces grew dim with woe; But the rose and the radiance returned at last.
“Are gardens there? Are there streams like ours? Is God white-headed, or youthful and strong? Hang there the rainbows o’er happy bowers? Are there sun and moon and the thrush’s song?”
“They have gardens there without noise or strife, And there is the Tree of immortal Life: Four rivers circle that blissful bound; And Spirits float o’er it, and Spirits go round: There, set in the midst, is the golden throne; And the Maker of all things sits thereon: A rainbow o’er-hangs him; and lo! therein The beams are His Holy Ones washed from sin.”
As he spake, the hearts of the Maids beat time To music in heaven of peace and love; And the deeper sense of that lore sublime Came out from within them, and down from above; By degrees came down; by degrees came out: Who loveth, and hopeth, not long shall doubt.
“Who is your God? Is love on His brow? Oh how shall we love Him and find Him? How?” The pure cheek flamed like the dawn-touched dew: There was silence: then Patrick began anew. “The princes who ride in your father’s train Have courted your love, but sued in vain;— Look up, O Maidens; make answer free: What boon desire you, and what would you be?”
“Pure we would be as yon wreath of foam, Or the ripple which now yon sunbeams smite: And joy we would have, and a songful home; And one to rule us, and Love’s delight.”
“In love God fashioned whatever is, The hills, and the seas, and the skiey fires; For love He made them, and endless blis Sustains, enkindles, uplifts, inspires: That God is Father, and Son, and Spirit; And the true and spotless His peace inherit: And God made man, with his great sad heart, That hungers when held from God apart. Your sire is a King on earth: but I Would mate you to One who is Lord on high: There bride is maid: and her joy shall stand, For the King’s Son hath laid on her head His hand.” As he spake, the eyes of that lovely twain Grew large with a tearful but glorious light, Like skies of summer late cleared by rain, When the full-orbed moon will be soon in sight.
“That Son of the King—is He fairest of men? That mate whom He crowns—is she bright and blest? Does she chase the red deer at His side through the glen? Does she charm Him with song to His noontide rest?”
“That King’s Son strove in a long, long war: His people He freed; yet they wounded Him sore; And still in His hands, and His feet, and His side, The scars of His sorrow are ’graved, deep-dyed.”
Then the breasts of the Maidens began to heave Like harbour waves when beyond the bar The great waves gather, and wet winds grieve, And the roll of the tempest is heard afar.
“We will kiss, we will kiss those bleeding feet; On the bleeding hands our tears shall fall; And whatever on earth is dear or sweet, For that wounded heart we renounce them all.
“Show us the way to His palace-gate:”— “That way is thorny, and steep, and straight; By none can His palace-gate be seen, Save those who have washed in the waters clean.”
They knelt; on their heads the wave he poured Thrice in the name of the Triune Lord: And he signed their brows with the Sign adored. On Fedelm the “Red Rose,” on Ethna “The Fair,” God’s dew shone bright in that morning air: Some say that Saint Agnes, ’twixt sister and sister, As the Cross touched each, bent over and kissed her.
Then sang God’s new-born Creatures, “Behold! We see God’s City from heaven draw nigh: But we thirst for the fountains divine and cold: We must see the great King’s Son, or die! Come, Thou that com’st! Our wish is this, That the body might die, and the soul, set free, Swell out, like an infant’s lips, to the kiss Of the Lover who filleth infinity!”
“The City of God, by the water’s grace, Ye see: alone, they behold His Face, Who have washed in the baths of Death their eyes, And tasted His Eucharist Sacrifice.”
“Give us the Sacrifice!” Each bright head Bent toward it as sunflowers bend to the sun: They ate; and the blood from the warm cheek fled: The exile was over: the home was won: A starry darkness o’erflowed their brain: Far waters beat on some heavenly shore: Like the dying away of a low, sweet strain, The young life ebbed, and they breathed no more: In death they smiled, as though on the breast Of the Mother Maid they had found their rest.
The rumour spread: beside the bier The King stood mute, and his chiefs and court: The Druids dark-robed drew surlily near, And the Bards storm-hearted, and humbler sort: The “Staff of Jesus” Saint Patrick raised: Angelic anthems above them swept: There were that muttered; there were that praised: But none who looked on that marvel wept.
For they lay on one bed, like Brides new-wed, By Clebach well; and, the dirge days over, On their smiling faces a veil was spread, And a green mound raised that bed to cover. Such were the ways of those ancient days— To Patrick for aye that grave was given; And above it he built a church in their praise; For in them had Eire been spoused to heaven.
SAINT PATRICK AND THE CHILDREN OF FOCHLUT WOOD.
ARGUMENT.
Saint Patrick makes way into Fochlut wood by the sea, the oldest of Erin’s forests, whence there had been borne unto him, then in a distant land, the Children’s Wail from Erin. He meets there two young Virgins, who sing a dirge of man’s sorrowful condition. Afterwards they lead him to the fortress of the king, their father. There are sung two songs, a song of Vengeance and a song of Lament; which ended, Saint Patrick makes proclamation of the Advent and of the Resurrection. The king and all his chiefs believe with full contentment.
ONE day as Patrick sat upon a stone Judging his people, Pagan babes flocked round, All light and laughter, angel-like of mien, Sueing for bread. He gave it, and they ate: Then said he, “Kneel;” and taught them prayer: but lo! Sudden the stag hounds’ music dinned the wind; They heard; they sprang; they chased it. Patrick spake; “It was the cry of children that I heard Borne from the black wood o’er the midnight seas: Where are those children? What avails though Kings Have bowed before my Gospel, and in awe Nations knelt low, unless I set mine eyes On Fochlut Wood?” Thus speaking, he arose, And, journeying with the brethren toward the West, Fronted the confine of that forest old.